


These Accidents of Faith and Nature

by Shadaras



Series: Dare to Live [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, healing is a process, past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 07:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10872198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: After breaking up with Mon-El, Kara talks with Lena about difficult relationships and the solace of friendship.





	These Accidents of Faith and Nature

The weather was very nice, and the scattered people walking along the street seemed mostly happy, and Kara had no patience. She glanced at her watch. Again. It wasn’t surprising that Lena was late, but that didn’t make it any easier to wait, especially since the doors of the crêperie were now open and the elderly couple she’d been waiting outside with had gone in and were going to get the first crêpes of the morning.

Lena had texted her ten minutes ago saying that she’d be there in fifteen, a work thing had come up. Kara had just been happy it was the kind of work thing that meant a delay, not the kind that cancelled everything. But still, it was past eleven and that meant that they were almost more meeting for lunch than brunch, even if Lena would laughingly argue against that logic if Kara told her. 

She already knew what she wanted to get from the crêperie—a banana fudge sundae crêpe, which had ice cream in it and would make Lena grimace (which really just meant she wanted some but didn’t want to admit it)—so she didn’t even have any particular distractions outside of her own head. And all her head was doing was telling her that Terrible Things were going to happen because she’d told Mon-El to leave and that he was going to return to his horrid Daxamite ways despite how much he professed to have left them behind.

Kara leaned against the cool stone framing the crêperie’s entryway and tried to breathe. All the advice Earth psychologists ever gave about being overwhelmed started with breathing. Maybe that worked better for humans than Kryptonians. All Kara knew was that focusing on breathing meant that she heard every beat of her heart and that it made her breathing seem far too harsh for how much she was modulating her exhales to be sure she wasn’t going to freeze anything by accident.

It did make it easier to just let time pass, though.

“Sorry I’m late!” Lena called.

Kara’s eyes snapped open and she looked to her friend. Lena wasn’t dressed down—Kara was pretty sure she didn’t know the meaning of casual—but she was wearing a simple blouse and trousers, instead of her more formal work outfits. She was also smiling, and not carrying as many stress lines around her eyes as usual. Belatedly, Kara remembered to smile back, and said, “It’s okay!”

Lena swept her up in a hug as soon as she was close enough. Kara returned it, grateful. Lena smelled like citrus and flowers; the citrus was from disinfectant, and the flowers was a rotating cast of perfumes that worked their way into Lena’s clothing even if Kara was pretty sure nobody else could smell them even at this distance. The scent was fresher today than most days, though, so Lena must have used perfume recently.

This close, Lena’s voice was quieter. “You don’t look too overwhelmed.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

She felt Lena smile. “I pride myself on never looking overwhelmed in public, so it goes without saying.”

“I guess that’s true,” Kara said as she pulled away. She blinked quickly, and turned to push open the door to the crêperie. “So, Maggie’s decided that I need to experience roller derby. She thinks it’d be good for me. I think she’s using it as an excuse to make Alex go.”

Lena followed Kara inside, laughing. “Is there a group in National City? No, of course there is, it’s too big not to have at least one team.”

“Apparently?” Kara shrugged. “I hadn’t heard of it before, and Maggie said that she didn’t want to explain because she wanted to see my face when I saw it.”

“Then I’m not going to spoil it for you—or her—by explaining.” Lena passed in front of Kara, heading right up to the counter to order. “A Farmstand crêpe and a pot of chai, please.” Then she glanced at Kara and added, “We’re ordering together; I’m paying.”

Kara swallowed her protests, holding herself to just a sharp look. Then she stepped up and said, “A banana fudge sundae crêpe, please.”

Lena, as predicted, sighed at her, with that little curve to her mouth that showed how little she actually meant it. Then she paid, and the cashier assured them their crêpes would be out shortly, and Kara followed Lena to a nice corner table, away from the handful of other people eating at the crêperie.

Kara sat with her back to one wall and her eyes on the plant hugging the other one. Lena sat facing her. Kara could feel her eyes in the silence, and said, quickly, “I want to eat first.”

“I wasn’t going to press,” Lena said. She murmured thanks to the waiter for the tea, and poured it, setting one steaming cup in front of Kara. “I know you don’t like tea as much as I do, but it helps.”

“Is this the kind of tea you don’t think I should add sugar to?” Kara did wrap her hands around the cup, though. The warmth wasn’t really necessary; it was spring—nearly summer as far as Kara was concerned—and the sun was out. The warmth was still nice, and the strong scent was, Kara had to admit, comforting. Even if it was mostly comforting by association with Lena.

Lena shook her head. “It’s your tea, Kara. I don’t think it’s necessary to add sugar. I will hold my tongue if you do, but I do think you should try it without first, to make sure you do want it.”

“Okay.” Kara looked down at the steam rising from the tea, and didn’t move to drink it yet. But neither did Lena, so she didn’t think that was a bad thing. “I don’t know what to do with all this free time,” she admitted to the tea.

“TV marathons can only last so long.”

“I know.” Kara sighed. She was trying to keep her leg from jiggling, but it just kept moving anyway. “I want to _do_ something, but I’ve got a break from reporting—James’ doing, Alex’s idea—and Alex is also on a forced leave of absence from her job so that she doesn’t overwork herself, so...”

“You’re asking _me_ how to keep busy?” Lena laughed in astonishment. “Kara, dear, I don’t know what to do with myself when I have free time. I make projects out of thin air if I have nothing going on. When I was a college senior, my advisor literally changed the locks on her lab during finals so that I couldn’t forget about my non-lab finals due to perfecting my senior project.”

Kara looked up, a smile just beginning to crease her mouth. “I guess it is a little silly,” she admitted. “But everyone else has answers like videogames, or books, or TV...”

“And you want something more active,” Lena finished.

“Yeah.” Kara picked up her teacup and sipped a little. It tasted like spices and warmth, and not like something that even she could justify adding straight sugar to. “Alex might suggest going to a shooting range, but I don’t really like guns.”

“They can be useful, but I’d hope you don’t need them in your line of work.”

Kara laughed outright at that. “Yeah, reporters aren’t supposed to fire guns. We’re just supposed to talk about what happened that made other people shoot them.”

When Lena didn’t respond, Kara looked at her properly. She was looking down at her hands, laid out on the table. Her face was still in a way that looked like she was consciously holding it as a mask.

Kara hesitated. Saying things could help, but after all the things that people had been saying to her... nothing felt quite right. After a minute, though, she said, “I’ve been trying to learn how to bake properly.”

Lena tensed her fingers and shook her head slightly, then slid her hands off the table and met Kara’s gaze with a slight smile. “Didn’t you tell me that you burn everything?”

“I still do.” Kara winced. “I haven’t set the fire alarm off yet, though.”

“Baby steps?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

Approaching footsteps made them both turn, and the waiter set down their plates. It was an excuse for silence, at least, as they both ate—Lena’s turned out to be apples and cheese, and sweeter than Kara expected when Lena offered her a taste. Lena didn’t accept a bite of Kara’s chocolate and ice cream delight in return, though, which was about what Kara had expected. 

When they had finished, and the tea had cooled, Lena stood and said, “Let’s walk.”

Kara nodded and followed Lena out into the midday sun, bright and glorious and warm. She paused, a few steps out of the crêperie, to close her eyes and turn her face to the clear blue sky. She could hear that Lena had stopped, too, but there weren’t quite enough people on the sidewalk for it to matter that they were standing still in the middle of a city. The ambient noise of people going about their day rose and fell in waves around her, indistinct through the sheer mass of sound she had available to sort through.

After what had to be at least two minutes, Lena touched her arm. Her hand was almost cool, relative to the sunlight, but Kara dropped her face from the sky and turned towards the different warmth she brought anyway. Lena’s quiet smile softened the sharp lines of her face. “I think a park would be better than a sidewalk for this, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

Lena stayed where she was for a moment, obviously expecting more of an answer. Kara could feel her heartbeat pulse through her fingertips without even trying. Then Lena let out a little breath that wasn’t quite a sigh, pulled her hand away, and set off at a brisk walk that caught Kara by surprise. She had to jog, an awkward human pace at an awkward human speed, to catch up.

As soon as Kara settled in next to her, Lena said, “You remember when I was trying to decide whether or not to cut ties with my mother?”

“Of course I do,” Kara said, startled. “I—I gave you some not very good advice, and then I believed in you despite everyone telling me it was foolish.”

“Yes. And that belief was... very important to me.”

“I remember.” Kara hunched her shoulders. She wasn’t sure she deserved all the metaphorical applause Lena had given to Kara Danvers, but she remembered it. It had been warmth and delight and a softness, and hugging—holding Lena had been a sense memory that kept showing up in her dreams.

“When someone has worked their way into your life—in whatever form—and made you believe that you’re inexorably intertwined...” Lena’s voice twisted. Kara couldn’t quite bring herself to look; it was enough to hear her quickened breaths and the hardness of her words. “It’s hard to leave. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s hard.”

Kara stared at the horizon, which was really people walking along the sidewalk, caught up in themselves and not listening at all to their conversation. “I thought you were waiting until we got somewhere to talk about this.”

“Do you think that being still will help?” Out of the corner of her vision, Kara saw Lena turn to look at her, face calm and serious. “Because I don’t think it will. You’re always moving, Kara; you said it yourself, that you wanted to be doing something. Maybe we won’t walk forever, but I don’t think you’re going to start talking if you’re sitting still. Not without a lot more prompting.”

She shoved her hands in her pockets and tried to un-hunch her shoulders. It didn’t work. Kara was aware that her face was doing... something. An expression. Mulish, she thought, is what Alex would call it, that particular combination of stubbornness and knowledge that she’s being obstinate for its own sake, not really for any good reason. She kept walking, kept watching the horizon, and was entirely too aware of how Lena kept looking at her.

Finally, after almost a block, Kara said, “He was trying.”

“What was he trying?” Lena asked.

They’d slowed down. Kara picked up the pace, making sure to keep it human-reasonable. “To be better. M—Mike grew up in a really misogynistic family.” Lena’s hiss rattled through her bones. Kara grimaced. “I know what you’re going to say. I shouldn’t have started dating him to begin with.”

“It isn’t a woman’s job to help a man realise that women are people too,” Lena said, every word sharp and clipped. It sounded like something she’d said before. “Especially not through _dating_ him.”

“He grew up near where I did, before I was adopted.” Kara swallowed, and looked away from Lena as they stood waiting for the lights to change and the crosswalk to open. “He... he could talk with me about things from my childhood. I didn’t need to explain what I meant when I talked about the food, or the games, or the specific school rituals, or even the slang. He’d grown up with them too.”

The words were coming faster now, even edited to avoid the parts about not being from Earth. “He thought I was the light of his life. The best thing in his world. He wanted to change for me. He said it, over and over. He believed it, every time he said it, too. I could hear his conviction. And he tried, but he kept—” Kara felt her voice flatten out “—he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and after the first night I let him stay the night he just kept... kind of assuming he could do that whenever.”

“He didn’t respect you.” Ever so lightly, Lena touched her arm. Kara didn’t pull away. It was probably better that she was in contact with Lena; she wasn’t looking where they were going anymore. Lena’s hand wrapped around her arm, by the elbow, firmly present but not in any way restraining her. “You told him that, I hope.”

“I did.” Kara blinked, trying to keep tears in her eyes and not on her face. “He’d listen, and he’d say the right things but... then he wouldn’t do things like he said he would.”

Lena turned them down a side street. Her posture felt rigid, and her heels clicked sharply with each stride. She didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know where he’s gone, or what he’s doing, but...” Kara sighed, and tugged on a loose strand of her hair. “I’m worried he’ll go back to his mother. She... I don’t want to compare it, but...”

“She reminds you of my mother?” Lena sounded resigned. She squeezed Kara’s arm gently. “It’s okay to say it. Lillian is memorable, and her recent actions were... dramatic.”

“Yeah.” Kara fell silent. The other words—about how Rhea might bring down an army—seemed... too hard to translate into the mundane human world, where Kara Danvers was just a reporter at CatCo and Mike didn’t even have that much of an existence. She grimaced. “Did I ever tell you about how I wasn’t going to date anyone this year because I wanted to be confident in who I was alone first?”

“And then Mike happened?”

“And then Mike happened.”

They entered a park, a quiet little block of green space in the middle of the city. Kara could hear the shouts and laughter of children playing further in, but Lena led her towards a scattered grove of trees instead. “I’ve never had that kind of bad relationship,” Lena said. Her footsteps weren’t sharp anymore; grass muffled the sound and made each stride more careful. “But my family is... my family.” The twist in her voice was accompanied, Kara saw with a quick glance, by one on her face. “They’re a motley of destructive relationships that sometimes were—or should have been—good.”

“But you didn’t choose those,” Kara pointed out. “So they weren’t your fault.”

Lena stepped in front of her, forcing Kara to stop. She tilted Kara’s head up to meet her eyes, dark and forceful and so sharp, especially when all of Lena’s focus was on Kara. “Mike, and everything that happened with him, wasn’t your fault. I didn’t choose my family, any more than you chose yours. Luck, and accidents of birth, and how _other people_ choose to be? None of those are on you.”

Kara bit her lip. Lena’s hands on her arm, on her chin, were steady and warm, each finger precise in force so that Kara could pull away with the lightest intent but also beckoning her to _stay_. She said, almost whispered, “I wanted to help him.”

“You want to help everyone, Kara.” Lena’s smile softened her eyes, and her hand slid to Kara’s shoulder. “If you could, you’d save the world with nothing but the power of your heart.”

“Sailor Moon did it,” Kara grumbled.

Lena laughed. “Kara, what I’m trying to say is that your heart is wonderful, and I’m so glad for it, but just because you want to help someone doesn’t mean you’ll always succeed. And you need to save some of that energy for yourself, too—it’s no good to pour yourself into others until you forget who you are.”

Kara sighed, and closed her eyes. “I don’t think you’d let me,” she admitted.

“I wouldn’t.” Lena pulled her into a hug. “I don’t think your sister would, either.”

“But you’re both so busy...” Kara whispered into Lena’s shoulder.

Lena’s arms tightened around her. “I will make time for you. I think Alex will as well.”

Kara sniffled, and finally wrapped her arms around Lena properly. “Thank you,” she said, because there was nothing else she could think to say.

“Of course,” Lena said, quietly, almost sadly. She kissed Kara’s forehead gently, like a benediction. “It’s what friends are for.”


End file.
